Is Nintendo the master of Fighting games without complex inputs?

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So I've been a bit hooked on ARMS after deciding to go in on it at the last minute. I was kind of iffy about it on reveal because it seemed like a Fighting game - not a genre I've ever really liked for all the typical noob reasons. Like, Mortal Kombat is cool for its story and content, but was still only able to entice me to learn a few special moves and kind of stumble around with the basics. Something like Street Fighter or more is a lost cause.

I've read the common advice from people on GAF that "actually, fighting games are about spacing and fundamentals, combos aren't that important", but it doesn't really matter much when you go online and get stomped by special moves and combos and you just want to do that too. Memorizing special moves takes more discipline than I'm really willing to put in, which sure, is my own fault - but the dreaded "Move List" being a constant interruption to gameplay just kind of sucks.

And man, I don't want to pick a main. I want to mix it up and try a bunch of these characters and that just means more things to memorize. Let me hop around a bit without the Move List and watching a tutorial online about what a "charge character" is.

So anyway, enough about my hangups with fighting games. ARMS though - isn't this a perfect fit for the sort of "fundamentals" fighting games are about? Your attacks boiled down to literally two buttons, left and right punch (dude, don't get started on how unintuitive "light/medium/heavy punch/kick/etc." are on most controllers and what those even mean in gameplay), and the game being all about blocking, jumping, dashing - ie. footsies, and your offence game being all about aiming and timing your basic attacks mixed in with grabs & charged punches. It's beauty in simplicity. Every character plays the same* on a basic level with only some in your face different traits, so you can jump characters and still have the fundamentals down. The real complexity comes from the different types of ARMS weapons, and they still just come down to the same two button control scheme with variations in aiming and charging.

Like, as I improve I'm understanding it's all about positioning and timing - worrying about the execution of input is not a thing in this game. So why do fighting games do this? Is the "special move" an anti-pattern that's just too ingrained in the industry? Is there an advantage to the arcane invocations I'm not thinking of? Like cheat codes you need to memorize and execute in gameplay, they just don't usually have intuitive meaning beyond "well, I guess a quarter circle is kind of like pulling back your hands?".

Obviously to go along with the title, the Super Smash Bros. series is similarly intuitive in a way most fighting games aren't, with its two attack buttons mostly based on what direction you want to attack in. Switching characters is no headache. It's again more about positioning and timing than execution of input (though still a bit more traditional than ARMS in this sense).

So who else does games like this? Am I being a Nintendo fanboy here? What other attempts have been made at (sort of) traditional Fighting games that ignore the requirement of "special move" inputs?

Obviously I understand there's depth to it, but I'm talking about the game introducing you to and making the basics feel easy. Street Fighter is not good at this. Mortal Kombat is not good at this. I will jump kick and button mash, because what even is a light punch vs. a low kick? I understand hitting in a direction or timing my moves. In a traditional fighting game, the movements feel random sometimes unless I read the move list.

but what are those 4 buttons? What do they do in relation to everything else? It's just so abstract. In ARMS, I punch left, or I punch right. In Smash Bros., I attack to my left, or I attack to my right, or I attack while running, or attack in the air while facing right. It all makes sense. What does each of those 4 buttons do that's unique from each other in a standing position and is it easy to remember and is it the same between characters?

Banned

but what are those 4 buttons? What do they do in relation to everything else? It's just so abstract. In ARMS, I punch left, or I punch right. In Smash Bros., I attack to my left, or I attack to my right, or I attack while running, or attack in the air while facing right. It all makes sense. What does each of those 4 buttons do that's unique from each other in a standing position and is it easy to remember and is it the same between characters?

I mean again if your definition is that narrow it basically leaves it down to nintendos style, yes. However, I find a weak/medium/heavy/special button to be just as easy as light/heavy/smash attack system.

Member

This game is the most similar example but the character specific abilities seem to ironically make it really hard to grasp. And it feels more like a quick joke game than a legit effort if you don't want to learn those depths.

Banned

This game is the most similar example but the character specific abilities seem to ironically make it really hard to grasp. And it feels more like a quick joke game than a legit effort if you don't want to learn those depths.

Banned

This game is the most similar example but the character specific abilities seem to ironically make it really hard to grasp. And it feels more like a quick joke game than a legit effort if you don't want to learn those depths.

I'm not legit ripping on Divekick, it does fit my sort of example. The vibe of it probably put me off in a way that ARMS doesn't so I don't really have a strong opinion of if it does it well or not, really. Just a surface level opinion.

Member

You know what another great example is? Nidhogg. Getting a bit out there, but in the sense of it being a 1v1 focused on out maneuvering the opponent with your attacks, it has a similar feel to a Fighting game. I'd imagine if you constrained it to the sudden death mode and maybe implemented a health bar you could squeeze some depth out of those mechanics, which don't require "special move" inputs.

Member

I think so. I have a couple friends who are not necessarily into fighting games and they're currently terrorizing me in ARMS. Nintendo understands mechanics and maintaining conceptual philosophies to break them down and reform them for their audience. Pikmin does the samething for RTSes.

Junior Member

If you generalize this to outside fighting games, I'd be partial to agreeing with you.
Arms is a simplification of the fighting genre with a twist.
As an above post says, Pikmin is a simplification of RTSes.
Splatoon is kind of a simplification of shooters.
Paper Mario and Mario and Luigi are simplifications of the RPG genre.
Etc, etc, I'm sure there are more examples.

Party level melee doesn't really work as intuitively as you'd hope. Everyone just special attack/smash attack spams and never touches anything else largely, A is used for smash attack spamming and that's about it, if the C stick is broken.

Banned

You know what another great example is? Nidhogg. Getting a bit out there, but in the sense of it being a 1v1 focused on out maneuvering the opponent with your attacks, it has a similar feel to a Fighting game. I'd imagine if you constrained it to the sudden death mode and maybe implemented a health bar you could squeeze some depth out of those mechanics, which don't require "special move" inputs.

But what do punch and kick do? Like what does punch and kick mean in gameplay, what do they do in relation to each other? It just seems like they're fodder for the button combos needed for special moves and combos.

Guarding in Smash Bros. is "hold the shield button to shield on the spot, roll around if you want to get away, do it in the air if you get hit in the air". Not sure why that's hard to explain? Guarding in most fighting games, you have no room to breath so I have no idea what the expected follow up is, vs. in Smash the easy explanation is "get away".

Banned

Banned

But what do punch and kick do? Like what does punch and kick mean in gameplay, what do they do in relation to each other? It just seems like they're fodder for the cheat codes needed for special moves and combos.

Guarding in Smash Bros. is "hold the shield button to shield on the spot, roll around if you want to get away, do it in the air if you get hit in the air". Not sure why that's hard to explain? Guarding in most fighting games, you have no room to breath so I have no idea what the expected follow up is, vs. in Smash the easy explanation is "get away".

Because this isn't how low level smash is played at all. Smash at 'low level' is largely spamming special attacks and smash attacks with 0 jabs or such, which kind of defeats the purpose of everything else.
In the time it takes to properly explain how to use shield, roll, airdodge, etc in any mechanical sense that makes them viable options instead of "throw out an aerial as they get close", I could've taught you many combos in a fighter.

(Also smash has combos with way more nuance than fighters but whatever)

Member

Banned

But what do punch and kick do? Like what does punch and kick mean in gameplay, what do they do in relation to each other? It just seems like they're fodder for the cheat codes needed for special moves and combos.

Member

Party level melee doesn't really work as intuitively as you'd hope. Everyone just special attack/smash attack spams and never touches anything else largely, A is used for smash attack spamming and that's about it, if the C stick is broken.

But see you understand what all that does. If I do Party level BlazBlue or whatever, we'll all be mashing every button all the time because it produces the most chaotic noise in a small space and none of the difference between "light/medium/heavy" makes any sense without knowledge vs. "am I attacking the right direction with a powerful (Smash) or fast (normal) attack? good". Smash Bros. reduces the amount you have to know, what does "A" do, and does "B" do? Do those at the times that seem right. If it had a third button, it would quickly become the same as the other games.

Actually, PlayStation All-Stars is similar, with three buttons for moves. From what I gathered, Square was usually close range moves, Triangle longer range moves, and Circle was like... random stuff? It just wasn't intuitive, buttons seem to do random things.

Banned

But see you understand what all that does. If I do Party level BlazBlue or whatever, we'll all be mashing every button all the time because it produces the most chaotic noise in a small space and none of the difference between "light/medium/heavy" makes any sense without knowledge vs. "am I attacking the right direction with a powerful (Smash) or fast (normal) attack? good". Smash Bros. reduces the amount you have to know, what does "A" do, and does "B" do? Do those at the times that seem right. If it had a third button, it would quickly become the same as the other games.

Member

But see you understand what all that does. If I do Party level BlazBlue or whatever, we'll all be mashing every button all the time because it produces the most chaotic noise in a small space and none of the difference between "light/medium/heavy" makes any sense without knowledge vs. "am I attacking the right direction with a powerful (Smash) or fast (normal) attack? good". Smash Bros. reduces the amount you have to know, what does "A" do, and does "B" do? Do those at the times that seem right. If it had a third button, it would quickly become the same as the other games.

Tekken is like the most mechanically dense fighting game out right now, and 99% of its inputs are literally 1-2 buttons + a single direction

Smash Bros has simple inputs but is just all over the place when it comes to actual mechanics. The game isn't as tightly built as these other fighters, so the majority of being good at the game is just learning all the meta techniques that work as a consequence

You can feel "GOOD" at any fighting game by mashing, as long as you're playing against other people who mash.

You will NEVER play a fighting game online, where people mash buttons aimlessly without knowing the deeper mechanics, and actually feel like you're good. That isn't how the genre works, and if it DOES work that way, then you're playing a shitty game.

Member

Honestly you guys are way too hung up on Smash Bros. anyway, most of my example was about ARMS - Smash Bros. is more traditional and has some of the things I complain about, just not to the same level.

People who try to sell noobs on fighting games often talk about the importance of fundamentals and spacing and timing, and ARMS makes that its bread and butter and cuts out the input barrier for special moves.

Sure, I like my Nintendo games, but I literally asked in the post if anyone's done anything similarly. Dead or Alive or BlazBlue just are not doing the same thing. Something like Nidhogg is also on a different level than those.

Banned

I think it has to do with Nintendo's focus on accessibility. Smash is almost a party game before it is a fighting game. Punchout (although we haven't had one in a while) gets hard as hell but starts off easy and is much more a pattern/puzzle game than a boxing sim. ARMS is a long distance boxing game and the motion controls and longer reaction time between punches helps accessibility.